Duke or Texas?

You don't need biglaw to pay off your loans. With the new version of IBR, your loan payments adjust down to a little less than 10% of your income. Meaning if you strike out and make $40k a year your payment would be something like $225 a month whether you borrow $200k or $2 million. The excess is forgiven in 20 years, and although non-PI forgiven loans are counted as income, that is likely to be fixed. In a real sense, this all means it doesn't matter how much you borrow. In fact, there's a real case to be made that you should borrow as much as possible now (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_value_of_money). This isn't to argue for one school over the other, just to exclude one mostly unimportant factor.

Last edited by quakeroats on Mon Mar 18, 2013 11:50 pm, edited 1 time in total.

quakeroats wrote:You don't need biglaw to pay off your loans. With the new version of IBR, your loan payments adjust down to a little less than 10% of your income. Meaning if you strike out and make $40k a year your payment would be something like $225 a month whether you borrow $200k or $2 million. The excess is forgiven in 20 years, and although non-PI forgiven loans are counted as income, that is likely to be fixed. In a real sense, this all means it doesn't matter how much you borrow. In fact, there's a real case to be made that you should borrow as much as possible now (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_value_of_money).

This does not seem like something to plan on using (considering how much can change, see pensions, SS and retirement)

quakeroats wrote:You don't need biglaw to pay off your loans. With the new version of IBR, your loan payments adjust down to a little less than 10% of your income. Meaning if you strike out and make $40k a year your payment would be something like $225 a month whether you borrow $200k or $2 million. The excess is forgiven in 20 years, and although non-PI forgiven loans are counted as income, that is likely to be fixed. In a real sense, this all means it doesn't matter how much you borrow. In fact, there's a real case to be made that you should borrow as much as possible now (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_value_of_money).

This does not seem like something to plan on using (considering how much can change, see pensions, SS and retirement)

If anything, the deal is likely to get sweeter for the student borrower. The pension issues you've heard about are mostly private-sector problems. Public-sector pension issues are all at the state level, and for social security the only question on the table is one of constraining growth (for example by changing the way inflation is calculated). Student-loan forgiveness programs (1) aren't on the table (2) wouldn't be cut for current participants if they were on the table, and (3) don't go far enough to relieve the systemic problems in educational borrowing that are likely to lead to a full-scale bailout in the near term.

quakeroats wrote:You don't need biglaw to pay off your loans. With the new version of IBR, your loan payments adjust down to a little less than 10% of your income. Meaning if you strike out and make $40k a year your payment would be something like $225 a month whether you borrow $200k or $2 million. The excess is forgiven in 20 years, and although non-PI forgiven loans are counted as income, that is likely to be fixed. In a real sense, this all means it doesn't matter how much you borrow. In fact, there's a real case to be made that you should borrow as much as possible now (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_value_of_money).

This does not seem like something to plan on using (considering how much can change, see pensions, SS and retirement)

If anything, the deal is likely to get sweeter for the student borrower. The pension issues you've heard about are mostly private-sector problems. Public-sector pension issues are all at the state level, and for social security the only question on the table is one of constraining growth (for example by changing the way inflation is calculated). Student-loan forgiveness programs (1) aren't on the table (2) wouldn't be cut for current participants if they were on the table, and (3) don't go far enough to relieve the systemic problems in educational borrowing that are likely to lead to a full-scale bailout in the near term.

quakeroats wrote:You don't need biglaw to pay off your loans. With the new version of IBR, your loan payments adjust down to a little less than 10% of your income. Meaning if you strike out and make $40k a year your payment would be something like $225 a month whether you borrow $200k or $2 million. The excess is forgiven in 20 years, and although non-PI forgiven loans are counted as income, that is likely to be fixed. In a real sense, this all means it doesn't matter how much you borrow. In fact, there's a real case to be made that you should borrow as much as possible now (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_value_of_money).

This does not seem like something to plan on using (considering how much can change, see pensions, SS and retirement)

If anything, the deal is likely to get sweeter for the student borrower. The pension issues you've heard about are mostly private-sector problems. Public-sector pension issues are all at the state level, and for social security the only question on the table is one of constraining growth (for example by changing the way inflation is calculated). Student-loan forgiveness programs (1) aren't on the table (2) wouldn't be cut for current participants if they were on the table, and (3) don't go far enough to relieve the systemic problems in educational borrowing that are likely to lead to a full-scale bailout in the near term.

quakeroats wrote:You don't need biglaw to pay off your loans. With the new version of IBR, your loan payments adjust down to a little less than 10% of your income. Meaning if you strike out and make $40k a year your payment would be something like $225 a month whether you borrow $200k or $2 million. The excess is forgiven in 20 years, and although non-PI forgiven loans are counted as income, that is likely to be fixed. In a real sense, this all means it doesn't matter how much you borrow. In fact, there's a real case to be made that you should borrow as much as possible now (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_value_of_money).

This does not seem like something to plan on using (considering how much can change, see pensions, SS and retirement)

If anything, the deal is likely to get sweeter for the student borrower. The pension issues you've heard about are mostly private-sector problems. Public-sector pension issues are all at the state level, and for social security the only question on the table is one of constraining growth (for example by changing the way inflation is calculated). Student-loan forgiveness programs (1) aren't on the table (2) wouldn't be cut for current participants if they were on the table, and (3) don't go far enough to relieve the systemic problems in educational borrowing that are likely to lead to a full-scale bailout in the near term.

I do not deny the possibility, but it is not something that I would bet on. While the payments are adjusted based on your income the debt continues to grow. And pointed out earlier is the tax costs when it is discharged (which are still in effect as of today).

Aawaldrop wrote:I do not deny the possibility, but it is not something that I would bet on. While the payments are adjusted based on your income the debt continues to grow. And pointed out earlier is the tax costs when it is discharged (which are still in effect as of today).

This is the single biggest issue with lawyers/law students. Take a risk. It's a good one, and although there's potential downside, the upside is worth it. Going to law school is an even greater risk, you just filed it away in a different part of your head that ignores the very real costs (lost income/lost experience from time out of the work force/working for a firm that could can you or implode at any moment and leave you without similar options/etc..

I don't agree with everything quakeroats has said ITT, and this may be wildly controversial to some, but I don't really see 100k as being unmanageable at all, even without biglaw. I'm as big of a hater of the student debt machine as anyone, and I'm highly skeptical of anything over 200k (even for top schools), but you can manage 100k on less than a 100k starting salary.

romothesavior wrote:I don't agree with everything quakeroats has said ITT, and this may be wildly controversial to some, but I don't really see 100k as being unmanageable at all, even without biglaw. I'm as big of a hater of the student debt machine as anyone, and I'm highly skeptical of anything over 200k (even for top schools), but you can manage 100k on less than a 100k starting salary.

$100k is payments of a little over $1100 per month on a 10 year plan or a little over $700 on a 25 year plan.

romothesavior wrote:I don't agree with everything quakeroats has said ITT, and this may be wildly controversial to some, but I don't really see 100k as being unmanageable at all, even without biglaw. I'm as big of a hater of the student debt machine as anyone, and I'm highly skeptical of anything over 200k (even for top schools), but you can manage 100k on less than a 100k starting salary.

$100k is payments of a little over $1100 per month on a 10 year plan or a little over $700 on a 25 year plan.

romothesavior wrote:I don't agree with everything quakeroats has said ITT, and this may be wildly controversial to some, but I don't really see 100k as being unmanageable at all, even without biglaw. I'm as big of a hater of the student debt machine as anyone, and I'm highly skeptical of anything over 200k (even for top schools), but you can manage 100k on less than a 100k starting salary.

$100k is payments of a little over $1100 per month on a 10 year plan or a little over $700 on a 25 year plan.

StylinNProfilin wrote:I'm not sure if its clearly Texas. Biglaw in Texas is going to dip further into Duke's Class and that might be worth the extra 40k. I think the costs are close enough that I might consider Duke since you have strong ties to Texas.

This is kind of what I'm thinking and what makes it kind of a toss up for me.

Either way I probably need big law. 35ish percent at UT get big law or prestigious clerkships. 60ish percent get those at Duke. That's a big difference. I just don't know how to quantify that in terms of how much extra I should be willing to pay.

I do think that the reduced biglaw numbers at UT are at least slightly due to the self-selection of people from more rural areas in Texas who return to practice there, which I'm sure is a lot less common at Duke.

There is quite a bit of self selection at UT. That's because the alternatives are not a bad option since the cost of living is so low. You guys have to remember that biglaw has a terrible effect on your quality of life. Not everyone wants it. I didn't.

That being said, if you have Texas ties, I'd take Duke if I were you. It's a smaller school. Texas is a larger school. There are only so many spots to go around. And I love Texas. And that is my law school alma mater. But I'm also being real with you. The difference in debt is just not great enough to justify taking Texas over Duke if you have Texas ties.

If this were around the time I graduated from UT Law, I'd say do Texas in a heart beat. But now? In your case, 40k is not enough of a difference to justify Texas over Duke if you have Texas ties, plain and simple. Bigger law schools are always going to be worse options because of their size if costs and quality between the schools are roughly equal. That's because there are a finite number of spots at firms.

Texas. The 35% big law stat is deflated since, as several people have noted, a lot of UT grads go to smaller TX markets or to mid-size or boutique practices in Dallas/Houston. You also have a significant number of grads going into PI; I'd hypothesize that it's due to the lower flat-tuition rates at UT compared to other top schools, especially for TX residents.

That said, this all seems to hinge on OP's ties back to the state. Top half at Duke + TX ties can get you interviews at Big Law in Dallas/Houston, but it depends on if you really have relations back to the state. That means you grew up in Dallas or Houston, not that you have an Aunt in San Antonio or your wife went to Baylor. Unless you've had a TX mailing address at some point in your life, you don't have ties to Texas for purposes of OCI interviews.

tl;dr - For OP, if you're set on TX Big Law, and if you really have ties to the state, it's a $ issue. If you don't, you need to go to UT.

Longhorn88 wrote:Texas. The 35% big law stat is deflated since, as several people have noted, a lot of UT grads go to smaller TX markets or to mid-size or boutique practices in Dallas/Houston. You also have a significant number of grads going into PI; I'd hypothesize that it's due to the lower flat-tuition rates at UT compared to other top schools, especially for TX residents.

That said, this all seems to hinge on OP's ties back to the state. Top half at Duke + TX ties can get you interviews at Big Law in Dallas/Houston, but it depends on if you really have relations back to the state. That means you grew up in Dallas or Houston, not that you have an Aunt in San Antonio or your wife went to Baylor. Unless you've had a TX mailing address at some point in your life, you don't have ties to Texas for purposes of OCI interviews.

tl;dr - For OP, if you're set on TX Big Law, and if you really have ties to the state, it's a $ issue. If you don't, you need to go to UT.

This is true. You have to have real ties. Having a relative or girlfriend in the state will not cut it. Nor will a wife who went to a school in the state. If you don't have real ties, you better go to Texas if you want Texas. They want to be pretty certain that you are more than happy to live there. And the only way they can determine that is if you have lived there before.

So there is very little chance a Texas firm is going to offer a person from outside of Texas a job if that person didn't live there sometime before or attend UT Law.

Last edited by utlaw2007 on Thu Mar 21, 2013 1:08 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Longhorn88 wrote:Texas. The 35% big law stat is deflated since, as several people have noted, a lot of UT grads go to smaller TX markets or to mid-size or boutique practices in Dallas/Houston. You also have a significant number of grads going into PI; I'd hypothesize that it's due to the lower flat-tuition rates at UT compared to other top schools, especially for TX residents.

That said, this all seems to hinge on OP's ties back to the state. Top half at Duke + TX ties can get you interviews at Big Law in Dallas/Houston, but it depends on if you really have relations back to the state. That means you grew up in Dallas or Houston, not that you have an Aunt in San Antonio or your wife went to Baylor. Unless you've had a TX mailing address at some point in your life, you don't have ties to Texas for purposes of OCI interviews.

tl;dr - For OP, if you're set on TX Big Law, and if you really have ties to the state, it's a $ issue. If you don't, you need to go to UT.

This is true. You have to have real ties. Having a relative or girlfriend in the state will not cut it. If you don't have real ties, you better go to Texas if you want Texas.

I grew up elsewhere but worked full time in Texas the last few years and will be married to an Aggie who has never lived outside the state of Texas (other than potentially with me when I go to law school). Sufficient ties I hope?

Longhorn88 wrote:Texas. The 35% big law stat is deflated since, as several people have noted, a lot of UT grads go to smaller TX markets or to mid-size or boutique practices in Dallas/Houston. You also have a significant number of grads going into PI; I'd hypothesize that it's due to the lower flat-tuition rates at UT compared to other top schools, especially for TX residents.

That said, this all seems to hinge on OP's ties back to the state. Top half at Duke + TX ties can get you interviews at Big Law in Dallas/Houston, but it depends on if you really have relations back to the state. That means you grew up in Dallas or Houston, not that you have an Aunt in San Antonio or your wife went to Baylor. Unless you've had a TX mailing address at some point in your life, you don't have ties to Texas for purposes of OCI interviews.

tl;dr - For OP, if you're set on TX Big Law, and if you really have ties to the state, it's a $ issue. If you don't, you need to go to UT.

This is true. You have to have real ties. Having a relative or girlfriend in the state will not cut it. If you don't have real ties, you better go to Texas if you want Texas.

I grew up elsewhere but worked full time in Texas the last few years and will be married to an Aggie who has never lived outside the state of Texas (other than potentially with me when I go to law school). Sufficient ties I hope?

If you are not married to her yet, I don't think that is really going to help you IMO. Having worked and lived there for the past few years will help. I think it's going to depend upon the firm. I get the impression that smaller near market paying firms REALLY care about substantial ties and may not be compelled with your ties. However, the bigger biglaw firms will probably find your ties of living and working there the past few years sufficient.

I do think that going to UT Law will give you a significant advantage over Duke with the smaller big/mid law firms that pay near market. I don't think they would be willing to gamble on you if you come out of Duke. For example, I know this is completely anecdotal, but that is really the only kind of evidence you are going to get for this type of issue. I interviewed with one of those midlaw near market rate paying firms in Dallas. I am from Houston. Mind you. I am a Texan, born and raised. Have lived here in Houston all of my life. The entire interview was about how I would not like Dallas being from Houston and not having lived in Dallas. I'm not saying they are all like that because they are not. However, Texas has some regional firms that pay near market. By near market, I'm saying anywhere in the 120k-145k range. These are not NLJ250 firms. They are not big enough because they only have just a few locations in Texas. But the near market pay is especially good in Texas because our cost of living is low and there is no state income tax. These do not include the firms that start you around 80-100k. And no, those firms don't practice sh%$#!t law. They do a lot of stuff the biglaw firms do but just on a much smaller scale with companies that are much smaller but still have a large Texas presence. There are a TON of these in Dallas and Houston. I don't think you would have ANY chance of being hired by firms like these coming from Duke. They ONLY recruit UT. It's just cheaper to do so. And sometimes they hire from UH or SMU. That's all they need to do. They don't need diverse classes of law grads from all top schools because they are not national firms. They are Texas firms. But they pay near market. These are the job opportunities that you will not get coming from Duke. But you should be good coming from Duke with your ties with the national Texas based firms.

Longhorn88 wrote:Texas. The 35% big law stat is deflated since, as several people have noted, a lot of UT grads go to smaller TX markets or to mid-size or boutique practices in Dallas/Houston. You also have a significant number of grads going into PI; I'd hypothesize that it's due to the lower flat-tuition rates at UT compared to other top schools, especially for TX residents.

That said, this all seems to hinge on OP's ties back to the state. Top half at Duke + TX ties can get you interviews at Big Law in Dallas/Houston, but it depends on if you really have relations back to the state. That means you grew up in Dallas or Houston, not that you have an Aunt in San Antonio or your wife went to Baylor. Unless you've had a TX mailing address at some point in your life, you don't have ties to Texas for purposes of OCI interviews.

tl;dr - For OP, if you're set on TX Big Law, and if you really have ties to the state, it's a $ issue. If you don't, you need to go to UT.

This is true. You have to have real ties. Having a relative or girlfriend in the state will not cut it. If you don't have real ties, you better go to Texas if you want Texas.

I grew up elsewhere but worked full time in Texas the last few years and will be married to an Aggie who has never lived outside the state of Texas (other than potentially with me when I go to law school). Sufficient ties I hope?

If you are not married to her yet, I don't think that is really going to help you IMO. Having worked and lived there for the past few years will help. I think it's going to depend upon the firm. I get the impression that smaller near market paying firms REALLY care about substantial ties and may not be compelled with your ties. However, the bigger biglaw firms will probably find your ties of living and working there the past few years sufficient.

I do think that going to UT Law will give you a significant advantage over Duke with the smaller big/mid law firms that pay near market. I don't think they would be willing to gamble on you if you come out of Duke. For example, I know this is completely anecdotal, but that is really the only kind of evidence you are going to get for this type of issue. I interviewed with one of those midlaw near market rate paying firms in Dallas. I am from Houston. Mind you. I am a Texan, born and raised. Have lived here in Houston all of my life. The entire interview was about how I would not like Dallas being from Houston and not having lived in Dallas. I'm not saying they are all like that because they are not. However, Texas has some regional firms that pay near market. By near market, I'm saying anywhere in the 120k-145k range. This is not including the firms that start you around 80-100k. There are a TON of these in Dallas and Houston. These are not NLJ250 firms. They are not big enough because they only have just a few locations in Texas. But the near market pay is especially good in Texas because our cost of living is low and there is no state income tax. I don't think you would have ANY chance of being hired by a firm like this coming from Duke. They ONLY recruit UT. It's just cheaper to do so. And sometimes they hire from UH or SMU. That's all they need to do. They don't need diverse classes of law grads from all top schools because they are not national firms. They are Texas firms. But they pay near market. These are the job opportunities that you will not get coming from Duke. But you should be good coming from Duke with your ties with the national Texas based firms.

Well I have only lived in Texas for a few years so I don't think that's enough time for any city to claim my loyalty

And yes, we will be married in June. If living in Texas right before school and marrying a Texan (one who WHOOPs at the mere letters "A" and "M" mind you) is not enough for Texas-based firms then oh well I guess.

Also I see the "self-selection" thing said about a lot of different schools in a lot of different contexts but I especially hear people say it about UT. Even if people are self-selecting out of high paying job or whatever (which I am a bit suspicious of but I am willing to acknowledge as potentially being a thing), how much of that should really factor into my decision-making? If it can't be quantified at all then I'm kind of inclined to just ignore it and look at the more tangible data at hand. Or maybe it's such a small factor that it should be ignored. I mean, if three people get regional midlaw out of UT or a boutique like Susman then that doesn't really help me. If 30 people get it, that's substantial. Is there any way for me to track this data down? Career services?